


From the Sound of Your Voice

by Wolftraps (AlwaysBoth)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysBoth/pseuds/Wolftraps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia isn't entirely sure when it happened, but somewhere between finding out she was a banshee and finishing junior year, Sheriff Jack Stilinski became the first person on her speed dial. He's the first one she calls when she finds a body or gets the feeling that something is going to happen (followed closely by his son). It makes sense. He's the sheriff, after all, and he knows about all the weird things.</p>
<p>What doesn't make sense is all the other calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Sound of Your Voice

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know how this happened.

Lydia isn't entirely sure when it happened, but somewhere between finding out she was a banshee and finishing junior year, Sheriff Jack Stilinski became the first person on her speed dial. He's the first one she calls when she finds a body or gets the feeling that something is going to happen (followed closely by his son). It makes sense. He's the sheriff, after all, and he knows about all the weird things.   
  
What doesn't make sense is all the other calls. The ones that start one night when everything is getting to be just too much and she remembers his hand on her shoulder as he told her to call if she ever needed anything. The ones where no one is dead and she just needs someone to talk to. Someone she doesn't feel like she needs to be strong for; someone who tells her it's okay to break down or feel overwhelmed and actually means it.   
  
The first time she runs into him in town and her first thought is that civilian clothes make him look damn fine, she knows she's in trouble. But it isn't until she gets her acceptance letter to MIT, and he's the first person she calls to tell, that she realizes how lost she really is.   
  
It's obvious he doesn't think of her that way. He can't. She's half a year younger than his son, one of her closest friends, who had a crush on her for nearly a decade. Not to mention he's too good a man, and still wears his wedding ring. So she doesn't say anything. Doesn't make a fool of herself. And when she calls to say goodbye, to thank him for his support, the day she gets on a plane for the east coast, she tells herself that it's the last time. She's going to let it go.   
  
School takes up most of her time, and she talks to Allison and Stiles at least once a week to occupy the rest of the time and to keep herself on track. For two months she makes it, until the night she wakes up screaming and follows the now-familiar pull to a dead body about a mile from campus. She has her phone out and ringing before she can even think about it.   
  
"Lydia?" he asks, voice clear even though she probably woke him up. "It's like four in the morning for you. Are you okay?"   
  
She takes a deep breath, feeling the tension that has been building in her for months dissipate, just from the sound of his voice.   
  
"Lydia?"   
  
"I found a body. What should I do?"   
  
\-----   
  
  
After that, her resolve just kind of disappears without a trace. She calls him when she's stressing about midterms, when she can't decide whether to join a sorority, when she misses home, and on one occasion she really wishes she could remember, when she's very, very drunk. He never brings it up, but her phone says they were connected for almost twenty minutes, and that is a very long time to say something ill advised.   
  
Still, she reminds herself that it's one-sided. He's a friend at best. An _old_ friend.   
  
Lydia starts seeing a boy in her Intro to Astronomy class and doesn't call for over a month. The sex is alright, and it's a decent enough distraction. She decides to stay with him in Massachusetts for the summer and only calls once, when the semester ends and she aces all her finals. It becomes a point of tension when her boyfriend finally notices that she reaches for her phone whenever something significant happens, staring at it, warring with herself. Still, she manages to hold out.   
  
When they break up, though, and it's such a complete disaster, she breaks down. She calls, sobbing, and he spends two hours talking to her, consoling her, telling her she's beautiful and brilliant and there's no possible way that guy was good enough for her.   
  
She takes winterim classes so she won't have to go home, won't have to face the fact that she's in love with someone twice her age. She calls to wish him a happy New Year, though, late in the afternoon because she knows he was out patrolling the night before. And she hears Stiles in the background, asking who it is. He asks if she wants to talk to Stiles, and when she says no, he calls back that it's no one, just a friend.   
  
It's almost too much. Too much hope, too much worry. She tries to keep from calling again. Hopes that if she can just hold out long enough, the feelings will fade. Eventually he really will be just a friend. A good but distant one like she and Jackson became. It almost works. She reaches for the phone every so often, at her toughest and proudest moments, but she holds out again for almost three months.   
  
And then _he_ calls _her_ to wish her a happy 20th birthday, and they talk about her plans and his job and nothing important for almost two hours.   
  
Lydia goes home for summer break that year and they meet for lunch a couple times, though that's all. And it's probably still only her that sees this as anything more, but she's too far in to back out now. They keep talking after she goes back to school, with him calling her every now and then. Somewhere along the way she even convinces him to try Skype.   
  
She doesn't go home for winter break, but she know he's taken New Year's Eve off this year, and Stiles is out with Scott, so that isn't a concern. She starts a video call on Skype around ten, seven for him, and they just never get around to hanging up. Her roommates invite her out to a party, but she just doesn't really care.   
  
They both spend the night in, Skyping, him with a bottle of Jack, her with a bottle of premixed Long Island ice tea (which he only makes one small comment about), just talking. At some point they end up jointly watching CSI, or some other investigative show, and he nitpicks the policework and she explains how all their forensic science is _wrong._ They don't even notice when midnight passes for her, but she counts down with him as she closes in on three in the morning, and blows him a kiss when they get to zero.   
  
"God, you're beautiful," He says, voice very slightly slurred. Then his eyes go wide. "Shit. I-"   
  
"I love you," Lydia responds before she can overthink it.   
  
  
Neither of them calls the other for over a month, and Introduction to Neuroanatomy isn't quite enough distraction to keep Lydia from getting anxious about it. But she isn't going to call first. The ball is in his court. She's put herself out there far enough. So she waits for his call, and it doesn't come, and it doesn't come.   
  
When the call finally does come, it's on Valentine's Day, and his voice is somber and strained.   
  
"I usually visit Claudia's grave today," he says. "She thought the holiday was a total joke, stupid and commercial, and she rejected everything about it. She said you shouldn't need a certain day and an overpriced box of chocolates to tell someone you love them. You should let them know every day, in all the little ways that matter. Tomorrow would've been our twenty-second anniversary."   
  
"It _is_ a ridiculous holiday," Lydia agrees quietly, unsure of where they stand and what his motives for sharing this are. Somehow, him talking about his dead wife in the first conversation they have after her confession doesn't seem like a good sign. "Why-"   
  
"I always visit her grave today… but I couldn't. I can't. Because I just keep thinking of you."   
  
\-----   
  
  
Lydia goes home for spring break, which happens to fall on her birthday this year. But even though she's twenty-one, she doesn't go partying. Instead, she uses her new legal powers to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels and a decent rum and takes her loot to the sheriff's house.   
  
Jack greets her at the door with a beer and doesn't argue when she puts in The Notebook and settles herself into his side on the couch. And he's gotten older since she first entered his number into her phone, but so has she, and it doesn't really matter when he's whispering praises against her skin and touching her like she's something precious.   
  
\-----   
  
  
They have their issues, differences in views from growing up in different times, being at different stages in their lives, and worries on both ends about what the people they care about will say when it gets out. Lydia's stubbornness and temper get in the way, as do his family and reservations.   
  
After a particularly heated discussion, which Lydia ends by telling him she doesn't have time for this shit and hanging up before he can respond, they don't speak to each other for almost two months. She has no doubt she would've broken down within weeks if it weren't for graduation looming on the horizon. She gets a single text, the Sunday before final exams, wishing her luck, and she responds with a simple thanks, but doesn't call. No doubt she'll crack when she finally graduates. She can't _not_ share her victories with him these days.   
  
She makes it through the graduation ceremony, but the phone is in her hand before she even leaves the hall.   
  
"Congratulations," he says, answering almost immediately, and she doubts her grin could get any wider.   
  
"Yes, well, it's a stepping stone," she responds.   
  
"Of course. Baccalaureate today, ruling the world next year." It gets a little hard to hear him, there's a bunch of noise in the background, wind and people shouting, and similar sounds surrounding her.   
  
"I'll give them until I get my masters at least," she says. "Is there something going on? There's a lot of yelling."   
  
"You could say that. There's a bit of celebration," he says. "Someone very special to me just graduated."   
  
She freezes. "What-"   
  
"Lydia," he says, but his voice comes from two directions, and when she looks up she sees a familiar face, waiting for her in the courtyard with a bouquet of roses and a smile that makes her heart ache.

**Author's Note:**

> I post way more of my writing on [my tumblr](http://wolftraps.tumblr.com), so you should come visit me.


End file.
